Blackout (2008)

I saw Blackout (IV) (2008) this morning, not to be confused withfhe other movie( Blackout (2008) Director: Jukka-Pekka Siili).This Blackout (2008) was Director: Rigoberto Castañeda!Three people from different walks of life, find themselves trapped inside a stalled elevator. What at first seems like an inconvenience rapidly escalates into a nightmare.I enjoyed the movie Devil, which came out two years after this movie, I thought I would enjoy this movie as well and I did !It was really good movies (it's not a horror movie at all but more of a Thriller ), this movie is really entertaining and really good, as some intense moments and the acting from short cast was surprisingly good, much better then i thought they would be.The Downside of the movie.The First half movie was really well made, it was tad realistic but second half movie went in slightly different way, which change the tone of the movie a bit. which I did not like at all.And the end, had some really Poor CGI effects (which don't normal bother me), in this movie, its just looks total out of place. 5 out 10 Good movieIf you liked Devil you should give this a watch! (I think Devil a slight bit better then this movie)

I had heard nothing about this film before it came up in the TV listings. I hadn't even seen it on the shelves of my local DVD store. I read the write-up on the TV and it looked interesting and so I decided to watch it. Not the best film of its type, but still quite a good watch, but more of that later, here's a brief synopsis.Three people board an elevator in an old apartment building. It is a holiday weekend and most of the residents have gone away. The elevator rises past the ninth floor and then a power outage leaves it stuck between nine and ten. As time passes we learn about the three occupants. Karl is a surgeon; he has a young daughter and is grieving for his wife who had died tragically. Claudia is asthmatic, a student who is worried about her grandmother who has a terminal illness. Tommy, who has bruised knuckles has come from his girlfriend, Francesca's house and is in a hurry. They do all the usual things, press the alarm button, open the doors and shout, but to no avail. We are told in flashback the events that led these three to be on this elevator and it makes for some interesting revelations, especially when we discover one particularly gruesome secret that makes one of them very dangerous. But, of course, I'm not going to give that away, so I'll leave it here.This is quite a tense claustrophobic drama that unfolds into an exciting thriller in the end. I like the way the back-stories of the three main characters slowly unfold, which adds to the tension. Decent performances from the entire main cast, so honourable mentions go to Amber Tamblyn as Claudia, Aidan Gillen as Karl, Armie Hammer as Tommy and Katie Stuart as Francesca.This version has a running time of only 82 minutes which, I felt, was just right. Any longer and I think I may have got bored. As I said at the beginning, it's not the best film of its type, but having said that, I did find it quite entertaining and pretty gruesome in places. So, it's not one for the feint hearted, but quite an interesting film none the less. Recommended.My score: 6.3/10

I'm not sure about the film's title being a good choice, but this horror thriller enters Creep-like territory taking an ordinary situation you would find yourself, and turning it on its head. Basically three strangers with different backgrounds and reasons to be somewhere enter an ordinary elevator in a building under a little construction, and it ends up stalling. Claudia (The Ring's Amber Tamblyn) is trying to get to her dying grandmother in hospital. Karl (Shanghai Knight's Aidan Gillen) is a husband and father seemingly just wanting to get back home to his family. Tommy (Armie Hammer) is a young man trying to get back to his girlfriend Francesca (Katie Stuart) with an abusive father (Memento's Mark Boone Junior). It should be mentioned you see all this in flashbacks as they are trapped. As the hours pass by they are all getting concerned that no-one knows they are trapped and coming to help them, so they do try everything they can to get out or attention. It was inevitable one of them would crack and go over the edge, and it is Karl, and you find out the real reason he wants to get out is because he has a dead body he needs to get rid of before his sister-in-law and daughter see it. So eventually he makes sure that Claudia and Tommy know he is in charge, and I guessed it was going to be Tommy with all the arm-cutting and drugs. Tommy is victim to Karl's wrath, but Claudia eventually manages to escape with very bad injuries, and Karl falls to his death inside the elevator, oh, and Claudia's grandmother died before she could see her. Also starring Eloisa Bennetts as Nikky. Signs is a film I can think of that is a little ruined with flashbacks placed in tense scenes, but I can make exceptions. The flashbacks of Gillen's sinister character, especially the torture scene with cutting and salt combined with rape, is horrific viewing, but that just makes it all the more watchable, I was surprised I liked it actually on instinct. Good!

Unless it is an absolute necessity, and rarely is it, I follow the guidelines of my own self-imposed embargo on the use of a building's elevator facilities. As an undergraduate student, I found myself climbing many flights of stairs, book-bag slung over my weighed-down shoulder, wondering if it was worth all the effort. The amount of sweat a person builds up in this maddening personal decision is large, yet the worst case scenario that an electrical escalating contraption possesses would leave me sweating profusely. The worst case scenario, at least to my mind, is presented here in "Blackout," a new horror from young Mexican filmmaker Rigoberto Castañeda. I would say that it is the film to avoid if you are are squeamish about such frightening circumstances, but that would involve me insinuating that it should be viewed by those who would revel in such an adventure of fear.Read the full review at my personal website: http://www.sightforallseasons.co.nr/